Dragon’s Crown’s controversial character designs have been earning it negative scores for sexism, with its “ultimate hardbody” Amazon and “excessively animated” sorceress not proving popular with some elements of the more sexually enlightened western gaming press, to say nothing of its “groping” mini-game.

Dragon’s Crown is a fantasy-obsessed teenaged boy’s dream: crazy, violent and full of impossibly large breasts.

Recalling developer Vanillaware’s previous work on Odin’s Sphere, Dragon’s Crown is a 2D brawler/RPG hybrid starring a cast of over-the-top adventurers in a land of generic fantasy tropes.

The combat and wide variety of enemies play to Vanillaware’s strengths. But the game’s repetitive structure and a troublesome presentation of women prevent Dragon’s Crown from transcending its juvenile influences.

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Dragon’s Crown’s serious liberties with female anatomy are distracting. Two player characters — the Amazon and the Sorceress — are explicitly sexualized, with breasts literally bigger than their heads with rear ends to match, and plenty of the screen real estate is dedicated to their respective jiggles and sashays. But at least these characters are powerful women, with agency and a penchant for destroying rooms full of bad guys.

The same can’t be said for the female NPCs that fill Dragon’s Crown’s dungeons and other environments. Most of the women in the game are barely clothed, with heaving chests, backs twisted into suggestive positions, some with their legs spread almost as wide as the screen. They’re presented as helpless objects, usually in need of rescue. It’s obvious, one-sided and gross.

[…]

Dragon’s Crown makes a strong first impression. It’s a fun mix of RPG tropes and dynamic brawler action. But I found its over-exaggerated art style alienating and gross in its depiction of women even as it shines in building a world of fantastic monsters and environments, and the forced grind through the same stages dulled my excitement. Dragon’s Crown is a wild place to visit, but it doesn’t quite hold up in the light of day.

Dragon’s Crown is an unapologetic adolescent fantasy

Reviews less preoccupied with moral rectitude clothed as women’s rights have given the game a clean bill of health in spite of its obvious sexism, however:

The game’s “touching” mini-game has also come in for accusations of sexism too, notwithstanding the fact that players can freely fondle the gigantic slabs of muscle which form the male barbarian’s chest as well – this not counting as it is “not sexual”:

A while ago on the net i happened across some wonderfully erotic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan art. All 4 boys are in bed with Shredder, who has taken his shoes and socks off. But not his mask. All for of the TMNT have taken out their gorgeous man-meats and are proceeding to urinate all over Shredder's bare feet. All 5 seem to be having a lot of fun. Even though you can't see Shredder's mouth, you can tell from his eyes, that pleasure is afoot ( no pun intended ). I checked both here and Rule34 but cannot find it ? Please can anyone link the said piece of art ? It's so sexy, maybe you'll keep a save of the file yourself ?

She doesnt need to back "adolescent fantasy" with facts because that is not meant to be interpreted as a fact. That is an opinion and at the end of the day that is what a review is. We shouldnt be angry at her for not joining in on a circle jerk.

Over sexualization of women is definitely something that can be interpreted from this game and to some people that is definitely relevant. For those people, its helpful to get a perspective from that point of view. Everyone is entitled to an informed decision and diverse perspectives is necessary for that.

When you sexualize a character, you don't simply make their genitals huge. You highlight or even exaggerate what makes them sexy.

Men with giant balls and penises is not going to look sexy to a woman. A man's genitals aren't that appealing to women, especially when put on display. This is why most women don't like thongs and even find them disgusting.

Women like men with muscles and abs and lots of masculinity, so that's how men are sexualized.

@12:55 - The guys' chests are "just out there"? When Chris Hemsworth went shirtless in Thor I don't remember any female saying "oh he's just shirtless", I remember many females going "WOOOOoooooo! So hot!". Are you sure you're female? And yes, I'm generalizing all females here just like feminists generalize all men as liking the big boobs that the sorceress hDuplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!as.

@12:55 - The guys' chests are "just out there"? When Chris Hemsworth went shirtless in Thor I don't remember any female saying "oh he's just shirtless", I remember many females going "WOOOOoooooo! So hot!". Are you sure you're female? And yes, I'm generalizing all females here just like feminists generalize all men as liking the big boobs that the sorceress has.

@12:55 - The guys' chests are "just out there"? When Chris Hemsworth went shirtless in Thor I don't remember any female saying "oh he's just shirtless", I remember many females going "WOOOOoooooo! So hot!". Are you sure you're female? And yes, I'm generalizing all females here just like feminists generalize all men as liking the big boobs that the sorceress h

Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!as.

Being done with both males and females? Really? Just because the guys chest is all out there? No, for it to be fair to both genders the men would have to have monstrous, broadsword sized penis' and watermelon sized testicles that half dangled out of their loincloths as they walked and when they stood still, their animations would have then bouncing and flopping around.

Do that and you can say they're both being oversexualized. Making men over macho is NOT sexualizing them.

I think using To Love Ru, and probably several other franchises that are frequently on this site would have been more suitable. Those articles by themselves depict the over-sexulaization of women, and that's not even including the source material.

All those other sites seemed to give it a pretty positive score overall. XD

With that being said, if they want to include that kind of 'user-friendly interface', then that's the designer's business. But did we really have to see the big malformed lunch lady getting felt up too?

@05:12: because she couldnt express her true hatred by going even lower because her lower score next to all the expected rave reviews of an obviously well made game would have been suspect? extreme bias... makes reviewing so much easier "I dont like how the characters look so i give it a 0", done for the day and gonna get payed..

Scores are just plain retarded. Anyone that actually read the review can tell you that 90% of it is actually positive. theres one small paragraph at the end that points out the problems with depictions of women.

The atlus publisher even responded saying they think its a fair review.

So you're basically insulting everyone who feels sexually aroused past the age of 12 as well as generalizing everyone who enjoys this game as a 12 year old pervert or someone with the mind of one. You're also insulting 12 year olds for being lesser creatures due to their supposed perversion and feelings of sexual arousal.